1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a connector mounting structure that is suitable for fixedly mounting a connector, which has press-connecting terminals, on a printed circuit board.
The present application is based on Japanese Application No. Hei. 9-164289, which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
A connector mounting structure, which is well known in the art, is shown in FIGS. 4 and 5. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 1 designates a connector having a box-shaped connector housing 2 made of synthetic resin. The connector housing 2 has a pair of bosses 3 and 3 that are formed on both side regions of a bottom of the connector housing 2. Further, the connector housing 2 includes a plurality of terminals 4 in such a manner that the terminals 4 protrude outside of the housing 2.
The connector housing 2 is mounted on a printed circuit board 5 as follows. The bosses 3 and 3 are respectively inserted into a pair of fixing holes 6 and 6 that are formed in the printed circuit board 5, and each of the bosses 3 is heated so as to be deformed as indicated by the one-dot chain line in FIG. 5. That is, the connector housing 2 is fixedly mounted on the printed circuit board 5 by welding. A structure similar to the above-described connector mounting structure has been disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Publication No. Hei. 6-60067.
However, the above conventional connector mounting structure suffers from the following drawbacks. When the connector housing 2 is fixedly mounted on the printed circuit board 5, it is essential to utilize special fixing members such as the bosses. Therefore, the number of components is increased, with a result that the manufacturing cost is increased accordingly. Additionally, the conventional connector mounting structure is low in workability, because in addition to the step of soldering terminals 4 to the printed circuit board 5, the step of fusing the bosses 3 with a thermal medium or the like is necessary.
An object of the present invention is to eliminate the above-described drawbacks accompanying the conventional connector mounting structure.
More specifically, an object of the present invention is to provide a connector mounting structure which is advantageous in that it needs no special fixing member, and the connector housing can be fixedly mounted on the base board easily and at low cost.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a connector which comprises a connector housing having terminal accommodating chambers, terminals being respectively and integrally formed within each of the terminal accommodating chambers, wherein each of the terminals has a base board mounting portion protruding from a bottom of a respective one of the terminal accommodating chambers. This structure eliminates the requirement for special fixing parts. That is, the number of components is reduced, thereby resulting in decreased manufacturing cost.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, at least two of the terminals are employed as dummy terminals when the connector housing is mounted to the base board. That is, terminals that are the same terminals as the wire connecting terminals are used as the dummy fixing terminals.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, one of the at least two dummy terminals is located at each end of said housing.
In the connector mounting structure, both sides of the connector housing are fixedly secured through the dummy terminals to the printed circuit board. Hence, the resultant structure sufficiently withstands the load of tension of the covered wires connected to the plurality of press-connecting terminals, and the connector housing is kept fixedly mounted on the printed circuit board at all times.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the base board includes insertion holes, and the fixing portion of each of the terminals of the connector housing protrudes from a rear surface of the base board through a respective one of the insertion holes. The fixing portions are secured to respective contacts formed on the rear surface of the base board by soldering.
With the connector mounting structure of the present invention, the fixing portions of the dummy terminals are secured to the contacts of the base boards by soldering, while simultaneously soldering the wire-connecting press-connecting terminals to patterns of the printed board. Hence, the connecting fixing work can be easily achieved.